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Friday, October 2, 2009

Big Girl Bed

A crash in the middle of the night announced that Sandy has learned to climb out of her crib.

We rushed into her room, pulled the mattress out of the crib and had her sleep on the mattress on the floor.

That worked for a couple of hours until she fell off the crib mattress and decided she didn't want to go back on it.

So, Bill converted her crib to a toddler bed. I really appreciated his dedication (it was 2:30 in the morning!), but I couldn't stay up so Sandy and I went back to sleep in my bed.

So Sandy is in a toddler bed now. Anyone have suggestions on how to help her transition? I'm worried she won't go down as well for nap and bedtime.

Since I had my camera out taking pictures of Sandy's toddler bed, I snapped this picture of her in her pajamas. Notice the shoes? She loves shoes and one of the first things she does in the morning is go find her shoes and bring them to us to put on over her pajamas.

4 comments:

Wow - a toddler bed already!? Benjamin got into his toddler bed when he turned 3! Even then it was difficult. He was able to climb out of his crib at about Sandy's age, but we just taught him how to do it safely and most of the time he only did it during the day when he was playing around. I wish I could be of more help! Good luck!

I know Bianca was 18 months when she started climbing out of her crib. She ended up just sleeping with me. Ava was a year when she started climbing out but got good at it so we didn't worry and she was 2 before she went into the toddler bed....no problem. Joseph just kept getting out when he started in the toddler bed. You just have to be consistent with them. If they get out, put them back in without talking to them. It may take 100 tries. It might only take once. Maybe try a small reward for staying in nicely.

A couple of things I did to help Christian stay in bed.1. I would tell him to keep his eyes closed and I would sit in the rocking chair by his bed and watch him until he was too drowsey to get up (this was mostly for naps) I had to keep a clock nearby so that I didn't go crazy. It usually took 10 minutes or less of closed eyes for him to fall asleep.2. As I was doing our sleep routine I would tell him something that I planned to do with him after his nap (go on a walk, play outside, make a treat..etc anything that he wanted to do that day) but only if he slept (I actually still do this). It works 90% of the time. The only thing is you have to follow through if they won't nap and not do the fun thing and remind them it's because they are too tired to play!

Lilly never actually climbed out of her crib, but the rail cracked at one point when Jake was leaning over it so I wanted to get her out of the crib before she figured out how to climb out. I honestly can't remember what made us decide she was ready. I think one night Jake just got an impulse and converted her bed. She was already two though, so yeah. She fell out of bed a few times as first, but after the 3rd night she didn't fall out anymore. It's hard, but on the bright side her bed looks quite adorable!